I was on the fence when I heard about these new covers.Josh Kirby is my favourite illustrator, got all the Discworld paperbacks which are looking a bit tatty now.Been read many times over and over the years.I like the artwork I went to Waterstones to have a look and was impressed with the design and binding.The printed covers are on a kind of canvas texture with bits of the design created in silver or gold foiling.So I order them @ whsmith for 6.99 each instead of 9.99.

Very pleased with them and they look great all together in the book case.

I was born just around the time Maskerade was published, so by the time I came of any reasonable reading age, my dad already had the whole collection. As a result, I never really got around to getting any of the books for myself, reasoning that I could always just borrow his copies, but I figured that these new editions present the perfect opportunity to start my own Discworld collection, particularly because they cater perfectly to my semi-OCD-ish collector's genes. I keep my fingers crossed that theír sale figures will motivate Transworld to do the last nineteen novels in the same format. I'd particularly like to see Going Postal or The Wee Free Men done like this. I think they'd make for interesting covers (partially because I'd love having books the spines of which says 'Discworld: The Moist Collection').

Incidentally, are there any theories on why Good Omens has a smooth cover, unlike any of the Discworld books?

If you do decide to collect this version of the books, beware that you may not be able to get Eric in this format as it was from a different publisher. A lot of people have been frustrated by this when collecting the "black" covers.